


Blinding Light

by devilinthedetails



Series: The Negotiator [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Acceptance, Angst, Exile, Gen, Grief, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Tatooine (Star Wars)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26180437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: After Anakin's fall, as an exile, Obi-Wan finds some comfort in Qui-Gon's wisdom.
Series: The Negotiator [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901212
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Blinding Light

Blinding Light

Obi-Wan stood staring out at the shifting sand dunes of Tatooine. The twin suns blazed overhead, their harsh luminescence reflected and refracted in the red sand, forcing Obi-Wan to squint against the relentless sunlight. Before he had exiled himself to Tatooine, Obi-Wan had never experienced such pervasive, merciless light. His time on Tatooine had compelled him to confront what blinding light truly meant. 

He could have escaped from the cruel sunlight, seeking the shadowing, cooling refuge of his hermit’s hut, but he felt that he had to stare into the blinding light. Staring into the blinding light was how he faced his guilt and grief over Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side. The abiding, endless sorrow that the boy he had loved and trained had chosen to become a monster. The fathomless depths of his remorse that he hadn’t killed Anakin on Mustafar, but only transformed him into a maimed beast that lashed out with ever more fury and hatred. The nagging sense that he was failing the galaxy even as he sought to guard one of the twins who could be its greatest hope. 

He felt alone in his guilt and his grief—but didn’t all exiles feel alone? Wasn’t that what it meant to be in exile?—and he wondered if this was how Anakin had felt before his fall to the Dark Side. Swallowed by isolation, trapped in guilt and grief, and blinded by the light. 

He wished Qui-Gon would come to him so he wouldn’t feel so terribly, achingly alone. 

As if the thought had summoned him, Obi-Wan felt Qui-Gon’s presence beside him, invisible but palpable in his heart, mind, and soul. Death might have separated them, but through the transcendent Force they could communicate as if speaking through a veil.

“You’re here.” Obi-Wan hoped that inadequate-sounding comment could somehow convey to Qui-Gon how much he had missed him every minute since that duel with the Sith on Naboo. 

“You’re feeling guilt and grief over Anakin’s fall.” Qui-Gon’s tone was gentle—gentle as the fingers that had brushed Obi-Wan’s cheek as he became one with the Force—but Obi-Wan had to blink back tears at the words. “You provided him with the best training and guidance that you could, but you couldn’t make his choices for him. He was an adult responsible for his own choices, and he chose to leave the Jedi.” 

Obi-Wan could hear the echo of his own advice to Anakin ringing in his ears. After Ahsoka left the Jedi, Anakin had confided in him, and, at the time, Obi-Wan hadn’t seen what a blaring holosign of warning it was—that Anakin was confiding in him because he had no other friends among the Jedi, no other Jedi whom he trusted and respected, in the Order after Ahsoka was gone. 

He had offered all the proper Jedi platitudes encouraging detachment and acceptance even though he would miss Ahsoka’s vivacious presence among the Jedi almost as keenly as Anakin. He had told Anakin that you could care about a Padawan deeply and sincerely strive to guide them on the Jedi path, but you couldn’t make their choices for them. At a certain point, you had to step back and allow your Padawan the freedom to determine their own destiny even if that destiny took them down a different path than being a Jedi. You had to accept and respect their choice. To seek to control or deny it would be an impulse more rooted in the Dark than the Light. 

When he had said those words, it had felt like there were rocks in his mouth. At the time, he had thought they had been hard words to say. Now he realized that saying them had been infinitely easier than believing them when his own Padawan’s path had led away from the Jedi and to the Sith. 

“I should’ve guided him better.” Obi-Wan’s throat felt dry as the desert wind. “I was too strict with him sometimes.” 

He recalled how quick he had been to critique a teenage Anakin. How swift he had been to emphasize and correct any imperfection he saw in Anakin. How adamant and unbending he had been about enforcing the rules. After Geonosis, after Anakin’s mother died, after the Clone Wars began, he had tried to ease up—to become more patient and softer in how he dealt Anakin, but had irreparable damage to his relationship with Anakin been done before that? He couldn’t know. He’d never know because it was impossible to know. 

“If you had been less strict with him, you’d be wishing now that you’d been more stern with him.” Qui-Gon’s answer sounded like a sigh in Obi-Wan’s head. “You never win and always lose when you second-guess yourself, Obi-Wan.” 

“I should’ve made it clearer that I cared about him.” Obi-Wan wasn’t ready to stop blaming himself yet. “I’m always too sarcastic with people I care about.” 

He was and he didn’t know why unless it was because he was too much of a coward to acknowledge the depths of his own caring. 

“He knew you cared about him.” Qui-Gon was firm as a cliff face. “He chose to throw away that caring as if it were nothing.” 

That was a truth as harsh as the blinding light of Tatooine’s twin suns, and Obi-Wan wanted to flinch from it but found he couldn’t. 

“Grief and guilt distort our perception of reality, and, although they may tempt us into believing they are the truth, they are not the truth,” Qui-Gon went on when Obi-Wan was too stunned by this revelation to speak. “The truth is the Light, and grief and guilt are not of the Light. They are of the Dark. They are the shadows of possession and anger at ourselves or others.” 

“What should I feel to be in the Light then, Master?” Obi-Wan had been in the darkness of grief and guilt for so long that it seemed impossible to find a path back to a place unshadowed by those emotions. 

“Forgiveness and compassion for yourself and for others.” Qui-Gon’s wisdom was a light inside Obi-Wan now, guiding him to a brighter future of acceptance. 

“Do I deserve forgiveness and compassion after all my failures?” Obi-Wan’s question emerged in a strangled whisper. 

“You haven’t failed so much as you think because you are always too hard on yourself.” There was wry affection in Qui-Gon’s reply. “I think you deserve forgiveness and compassion more than most.” 

And because Qui-Gon, who had made him promise to train Anakin so many years ago, believed that, he tried to convince himself to believe that as well. The first step in forgiving himself would have to be thinking that he deserved forgiveness.


End file.
